Biggest M&A of May-June 2016

They are the merger and acquisition announcements from the past two months that could shape the industry for years to come.

Also included in this one-stop shop for M&A news are the updates to previously announced deals that were finalized in May and June, or ran into roadblocks that endangered their going forward.

You know the deals: Verizon-XO. Charter-Time Warner Cable. Mitel-Polycom. But do you know the most recent news that impacted them? Also here are new acquisitions by CenturyLink, Symantec, Cisco and VMware.

Looking for more M&A? Our breakdown from March and April is here.

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Charter Communications completed its mammoth $71 billion acquisition of Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks, having rocked the industry with the announcement a year ago.

This whopper of a deal creates a cable powerhouse with almost as many subscribers as Comcast, the nation’s largest cableco.

 We compiled a timeline in gallery format to document the history of Charter’s successful acquisition.

Vonage finalized the acquisition Nexmo, the privately held platform-as-a-service provider.

Vonage said the acquisition would speed up its growth strategy and deepens its technology capabilities in cloud communications. Nexmo is based in San Francisco and provides text messaging and voice communication APIs.

Read the full story.

Verizon’s pending acquisition of XO’s fiber business took some twists and turns.

Verizon refuted claims by Windstream and Transbeam that its $1.8 billion purchase could harm Ethernet over Copper (EoC) and business-data services competition.

In a filing with the FCC, Verizon said the deal will serve the public interest by growing the telco’s fiber-based IP and Ethernet networks, allowing it to better serve its enterprise and wholesale customers. Both Transbeam and Windstream, which purchase EoC services from XO, have said Verizon might not support their services after the deal is completed.  Windstream urged the FCC to impose certain conditions on the merger, including requiring Verizon to offer unbundled DS1 and DS3 capacity over copper and fiber at regulated rates even after Verizon migrates to IP-based infrastructure.

Click here for the whole story.

CenturyLink acquired “certain strategic assets” of the company formerly known as Active Broadband Networks, a provider of software-based broadband networking.

CenturyLink said the purchase will help accelerate efforts to automate its network, move network functions into the cloud, and deliver software-defined networking (SDN) and network functions virtualization (NFV) services to its customers. CenturyLink also is acquiring ElasticBox, a startup that helps enterprise IT organizations deploy cloud apps, and create a self-service catalog of apps and infrastructure.

Read the Active Broadband and ElasticBox stories.

Mitel said in May that it expects a smooth transition for all partners involved as its acquisition of Polycom is expected to close next quarter. That came one month after announcing it would buy Polycom in a cash and stock transaction valued at $1.96 billion.

Ah, but hold the phone! Just last week, Siris Capital Group, a private equity firm, pulled the rug out from under Mitel, offering $2 billion in cash — a deal that Polycom accepted. Mitel said it would not counteroffer.

VMware said it was buying Arkin Net, a software-defined data center security and operations provider. Financial details of the transaction were not disclosed. The transaction is expected to close in Q2 2016.

VMware and Arkin are already collaborating to meet the needs of mutual customers such as Columbia Sportswear, California Department of Water Resources (CDWR) and Nebraska Medicine.

Read the full story.

The news here is … the lack of M&A news.

Birch Communications signaled a shift back to organic growth by picking a new chief executive. Tony Tomae began serving as the new president and CEO of the company. Kirby Godsey, the chairman of Birch’s board of directors, said Tomae will lead the company’s efforts to develop an organic growth model. Birch acquired 28 companies under former CEO Vincent Oddo, including Primus Telecommunications in April.

This is where to read the full scoop on Birch going organic.

Read the full story.

Less than two weeks after saying it would pursue an IPO, Blue Coat announced that it would be acquired by Symantec for about $4.65 billion in cash, with the transaction expected to close in the third quarter.

Equity firms Bain Capital and Silver Lake will invest $500 million and $750 million, respectively, to help close the deal, and Blue Coat CEO Greg Clark will lead the combined company under the Symantec name. The Blue Coat executive team will also join Symantec, and execs said they expect to keep the core sales-force teams intact. Symantec has been pursuing a strategy to compete with more nimble security startups.

Read more about this huge deal here.

Microsoft’s $26.2 billion bid for LinkedIn no doubt left members of the software giant’s vast ecosystem of partners wondering what’s in it for them.

While Microsoft declined to comment on how the acquisition news may impact channel partners, the vendor did provide some insight on its vision for the combined entity – think more expansive opportunities for partners – on an investor call.

Read the full story.

Cisco said it plans to acquire CloudLock, a privately held cloud security company, for $293 million in cash and equity.

CloudLock focuses on cloud access security broker (CASB) technology that provides enterprises with visibility and analytics around user behavior and sensitive data in cloud services, including SaaS, infrastructure as a service (IaaS) and platform as a service (PaaS). The acquisition is expected to close in the first quarter of fiscal year 2017, subject to customary closing conditions.

Read the full story.

Carousel Industries acquired Source Inc., a Dallas-based unified communications provider. Neither party disclosed the terms of the agreement.

Carousel said Source brings to the table unique expertise in disaster recovery, e911 implementation, asset management and logistics. Carousel also said it planned to acquire Atrion, creating a fast-growing, privately held IT services firm with a national footprint and $525 million in annual revenue.

Read the full story here.

SolarWinds finalized its acquisition of LOGICnow, a provider of integrated cloud-based IT service management services focused primarily on the MSP community.

With this acquisition, SolarWinds brings together LOGICnow and SolarWinds N-able to create SolarWinds MSP. The union unites two complementary players in the managed services market to deliver a complete portfolio of capabilities to MSPs of every size and scale globally, the company said. SolarWinds bought N-able in 2013.

The complete story is here.